


Warmth Alongside the Heat

by thesnowyswan



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Boyfriends era, Established Relationship, Fiances Era, Husbands 1.0 Era, Husbands 2.0 Era, M/M, Mentions of the ONS, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-06-15 05:07:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15405630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesnowyswan/pseuds/thesnowyswan
Summary: Robert has his first heat in 12 years after coming off of suppressants.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Queen Vic and all she does for the fandom.
> 
> P.S. I've done everything I can to make this as non-offensively put out there into the world so if you don't like this sort of thing: don't read it. Don't put yourself through that, and don't put me through it by telling me you don't like it. Okay? Thank you.

It isn’t until he smells the cloying scent of honey and musk on his skin that he realises what’s going on. It makes him angry because he was so sure that it wouldn’t happen to him.

 

 

 

It’s Robert’s yearly MOT and his doctor notes his change of address.

The expectation hangs in the air.

Robert folds his arms, puffs himself up and looks Dr Cavannagh in the eye, “Yes, I moved in with an alpha.”

 _Alphas, omegas, betas_. Fucked up strains of biology that have little to no bearing on anyone’s life until they want to have sex.

Dr Cavannagh ignores his display completely, “And you’re still on suppressants? For how long again?”

Robert sighs, “Over twelve years.”

He waits for the judgement. Omegas are the broodmares, bitches in heat that want, want and want. Robert never wanted that to be his life.

“You haven’t had a heat in twelve years?” It's more concern than judgement, so Robert backs off.

“No, I don’t even think I could have one.” Which is true, given that he always ordered premium pills every month.

There’s humming.

“I’d like to take you off them, just for the fact that you’re living with your alpha and it’s playing with hormones that don’t need playing with.”

 _Your alpha_.

Aaron is his boyfriend, not his alpha. They're unbonded and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. 

“I’d prefer to stay on them, thanks.” Robert prefers the lack of hassle. A pill in the morning and he’s set.

His doctor stares him down, “Robert, I understand that it’s easier to be on suppressants, but your body needs a break. You should have had a cycle of six months free at least once, ideally three times, by this time in your life.”

Robert makes a face, “Six months?” 

“You’re avoiding your heat, but it’s a natural process for your body to regulate your hormones, not just for sexual intercourse. You say you can’t have a heat, keep going and you may never have one again. Is that something you really want to give up?”

Robert isn’t into the baby making features that come with his altered biology, but he circles back to that comment: _your alpha_. If he ever wanted to bond with Aaron, he’d have nothing to bond him to. Nothing to make him _his_.

“We’ll trial three months without and see how you go; I suspect you’ll have a heat sooner than you think.”

Facing up to the prolonged abstaining he’s put his body through, Robert doubts it.

 

 

 

 

It’s a month on from his appointment, the weather has gone from bright, sunny days to oppressive claggy heat that soaks Robert’s armpits by the end of the day and sticks his forehead to the table when he rests it on it.

Aaron is bumbling around in the kitchen and he frowns at Robert who only turns his head enough so that he can see his boyfriend standing there with a cold glass of juice and envy him it.

“What’s with you?” Aaron questions as he touches Robert’s forehead.

“I’m hot, you’re hot, we’re all hot,” He moans.

Robert lifts his arms and puts them back down when he catches a whiff of himself.

“Take a shower and quit moaning,” Aaron pats his shoulder and goes to sit down.

He seems so calm for what is the worst weather in Robert’s recent memory.

“Well, some of us aren’t part lizard, are we?”

“Come off it, Robert, it’s not that hot.”

Robert sits up and turns around, “Not that—I’m pretty sure I’ve got sweat in my arse crack.”

Aaron pulls an ‘oh, lovely’ face and Robert feels satisfied by it. _Good_.

“I’m going up for a shower, see you in bed.”

 

 

The next day is worse. Robert’s developed an itch under his skin that's driving him mad and he thinks it’s because his blood is so hot in his veins.

Chas stops him with a hand over his where he’s scratched his forearm raw. He drags it away from her and she gives him a look.

“I can’t take two of you.”

“I’m hot, my arm itches, leave me alone.” He says shortly as he heads out the front of the pub and ensconces himself in a corner.

Aaron casts him a worried glance when he comes in at lunch. Robert smells Chas’s hand all over it, but somehow, just having Aaron there makes it easier.

 _Soothing_.

He clings to that feeling, but Aaron has to go back to work, and Robert feels ashamed of the whine that comes out of him when he does, “Don’t go.”

It’s needy and base, and he recoils from it.

“It’s a big job,” Aaron tells him as if he needs to justify where he’s going, and Robert hates that he does it. No matter where they’ve come from, they aren’t those people who keep tabs on each other like that.

Robert nods like a scolded child, his stomach starting to cramp up and swell with the heat. He thinks he’ll knock off work and go to bed.

Aaron catches his eye, “I’ll come and see ya in a bit, alright?”

He gets a kiss pressed absently against his temple as Aaron gets up to go back to the yard. Robert thinks he sees the relief on Aaron’s face as he goes, and he wishes he could have a piece of that. He just feels awfully and shitty, like he’s getting a cold that won’t come out.

 

 

 

Peeling off his clothes, Robert lies on the bed in his pants and winces as the pressure upsets his stomach and he turns on his side. It’s funny because Robert used to love the heat. A right little sun worshipper despite being as freckly as anything. He gets a good tan when he goes on holiday if he says so himself.

 _It’s the mugginess_.

He flips onto his back and wrinkles his nose as he has to unstick himself from the duvet. Luckily, he manages to doze until Aaron comes to check on him, scooting onto the bed and Robert blearily looking at him as he rests on his elbow.

“Feeling better?”

Robert nods, “It’s too hot.”

He slings his leg over Aaron’s to trap him and he rubs soft circles into Robert’s belly and the good soothing feeling is back.

“You ain’t exactly built for it, are ya?”

Robert glares at him, “What’d’ya mean?”

Aaron’s fingers stop, “Calm down, you’re just—”

“What? I’m what?” He rolls himself off the bed, and Aaron looks at him, bewildered and confused at the sudden turn.

“You’re mental is what you are now.” Aaron sits up and Robert can help but focus his eye on the naked line of Aaron’s throat as he swallows.

 _No, I’m angry_.

He manages to get to the dresser and he pulls on a pair of shorts, he thinks they’re Aaron’s, and yanks on a t-shirt, “I’m going out.”

“Robert.”

 

 

 

He ends up at David’s shop, stalking the aisles for something that will tempt his taste buds because they’re completely off. He ends up standing in front of the milk fridge and the one time David attempts to talk to him, he glares so hard that David turns away without saying a thing.

Robert is enjoying the cool breeze when he overhears David, “Your fella is—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Aaron replies sternly.

He stays where he is and Aaron hovers behind his back, almost touching him but not quite, “Come on, Robert, time to come home.”

The cold on his front and the warmth of Aaron at his back is the best Robert has felt in days, so he just sighs happily as he leans on Aaron, Aaron’s fingers digging into his side to stabilise him. Still, he lets himself be led away, and he reinforces his look at David, who shakes his head as he passes.

If Robert were the type to growl, he would have.

 

 

 

 

The night passes without event, but Aaron has an early job, so he rubs the back of Robert’s head and tells him to stay there and he’ll call in sick for him at work.

“I still think you’re coming down with summat.”

Robert grumbles and shoves his face further into his pillow, his back aches today and he feels stiff, “Maybe you’re right.”

“Just stay in bed, strip off if ya have to,” Aaron pulls the sheet down so Robert isn’t so bundled up, but he shivers and pulls it back over himself: _mine_.

He gets a goodbye kiss, and as soon as Aaron is gone Robert misses him, so he steals his pillow from the other side of the bed and piles it on his own. Maximum comfort achieved, Robert tries to rest his aching body with more sleep.

 

 

 

Robert wakes up a little while later because he feels like he’s on fire. He’s on his stomach again and impulsively rolling his hips into the bed as the smell of Aaron’s shampoo and shower gel permeate his pillow and up into Robert’s nose. It’s a good smell, a comforting smell.

He stops.

It all finally clicks.

He’s in heat.

Rolling onto his back, Robert pulls the cover down and he’s rock solid, and his belly is consistently tight like he could go off any second. Outside of Aaron’s pillow smell, he realises _he_ reeks. Not a stinky sweaty B.O. smell, the other smell, the ‘I’m ready, let’s go’ smell. Instinctively, Robert rolls off the bed to close the bedroom door and stuffs some of Aaron’s dirty clothes down on the bottom door seam and he shuts the window despite the terrible weather to hide it from anyone passing by.

It’s worse for him like that, the smell building up and linking his brain with sex, and because of it, his dick starts to pulse, and he thinks he’s almost about to go off but his panic sends it receding back into him.

“Oh shit,” Robert mutters to himself as he shoves his pants off, their lightweight too much for his sensitive skin.

He sits back on the bed and is lured by the smell of Aaron’s side.

 _Just once_.                  

Robert slides onto his stomach, spreads his legs a little and rocks his hips. It’s embarrassing, but it’s all it takes as he stains the sheets with gritted teeth and curled up toes. It also isn’t satisfying. His cock is still hard, his balls are still tight, and his arse is clenching and unclenching rhythmically. Robert flips over and wraps his hand around himself, stroking himself to another painfully easy orgasm that seems to rip right out of him but does little else. This time, his belly bears the brunt of it, painting him almost up to his nipples.

He whimper-cries as he shakes the last of the come out and he realises he needs help.

Phone on the bedside table, Robert grabs it and texts Aaron: **need help, come home now**.

He sends one immediately after it: **don’t fucking ignore this**.

 

 

 

Two orgasms down and Robert can feel other things starting to progress. This is what he hated. The incessant need to be tied to another person. Male or female, it’s all the same to him in that moment; either he wants to be inside wet heat or he wants a hard cock inside him.

 _Don’t think about cocks_. It’s too late, he’s bobbing and even holding himself against his thigh just makes him want to hump his own thigh. It’s a mindless need. One part of it tied to a side of Robert he never wanted to be in tune with. Not until he met Aaron.

He thinks about Aaron. The extra bit of spongy flesh at the bottom of his dick that doesn’t, and won’t, do anything until Robert is in heat. And he never has been. The last time he’d had a heat was when he was 18, and living the way he did, he couldn’t afford the aggravation. His age helped him because the nurse he saw would rather Robert be on suppressants than face the trouble of an unrestrained alpha trying it on with him. He’d always lived in fear of an alpha’s rut because of it.

_A skinny thing like you, pet?_

Now Robert wonders if it will spark in Aaron. If the smell of Robert’s heat is enough to draw out those tendencies that live in him always: aggression, protection, possession. Alphas are just as stereotyped as omegas, but sometimes, they can be right on the money.

He feels the first trickle from his arse onto his thigh, and when he gets off the bed, there’s a wet spot. He doesn’t dare touch himself there because he doesn’t know what he’ll be setting off. Robert spits on his palm and rubs it over the head of his dick, letting his thighs shake with the nerve stimulation. He does it a second time and he goes off again like a rocket into his hand. He wipes it on the sheet as he lies back down because it’s already ruined and it makes another patch next to the first.

There’s noise on the stairs and Robert tenses up before someone tries to open the bedroom door and hits the barrier of clothes

“Robert, what—?”

 _Aaron_.

Robert flings himself off the bed and kicks away the clothes, pulls the door open, and drags Aaron inside, “Get in here.”

He pushes the door closed with his foot and rearranges the clothes back to where they were.

Aaron is deadly still where Robert put him, and Robert comes around to face him, “Aaron?”

The only thing that tells him that Aaron is even breathing is that his nose twitches.

“Is that—?”

“Yeah.” Robert agrees.

“You’ve been—”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Robert can’t help that Aaron smells better than his pillow does, and it draws Robert in close, nose sniffing the clean lines of Aaron’s throat that were so enticing.

“Robert?”

He hums. The hind part of his brain screams at him, _yes, good, this one_. It’s as basic as the fact they’re compatible. But it’s also more than that. Even through his suppressants and his denial, Robert knew Aaron would be good to him. He pulls on Aaron’s belt and starts to unbuckle it when Aaron pulls his hands away.

Robert looks at him, “What?”

“You’re in heat,” Aaron says it like it holds all the answers, but it doesn’t.

 _Protect_.

It flips Robert’s stomach and he ignores Aaron’s silent protest and pulls his belt out of its loops: “Yeah, I wanna go, come on.”

Aaron is softening. He goes when Robert guides him to turn and sit on the bed. As if he can’t help himself, Aaron leans forward to inhale deeply the skin next to Robert’s cock, the crease of his thigh, and it tickles Robert until he sways away.

Aaron’s hands grab fiercely onto the backs of his thighs, stopping any escape and Robert feels it in his balls. He’s leaking again, and Aaron is just sitting there, dick swaying in his face like he’s got other things on his mind. Robert takes hold of his chin and makes him look up. With those blue eyes watching him, Robert wills Aaron to give him everything. Ruin him, wring him dry, pull the heat out of him until he’s cold and empty.

Aaron stands up and Robert gets the proper scent of him now, and he thinks his heat might be forcing Aaron into an unnatural rut. It’s what he tells himself as Aaron roughly handles him onto the bed on his hands and knees and exposes him to the humid air. One healthy slap on his arse, Robert isn’t expecting Aaron’s tongue as it loops around and probes against him, testing and disappearing. He lays his knees further apart, pushing back harder as he smooths his hand over his cock, weighty and hot, as Aaron teases wet sounds out of him.

But the light touches never progress. Aaron keeps it strictly to the tip of his tongue as he strokes down the inside of Robert’s thighs with his hands, and Robert is getting frustrated.

“More,” he demands, and there’s nothing for a second, but then Aaron pushes at his rim with his thumb and licks him in broader strokes. Robert rolls forward with the pleasure, coming on his fingers as he works himself through it.

It fixes Robert’s itch for about thirty seconds and then he’s craving Aaron again. He turns over and Aaron is pulling his top up and chucking it off, finishing the job Robert started and divesting himself of his work trousers and pants. Nothing to do but wait, Robert rubs the soft skin behind his balls and presses on it for a little tingle.

“You just—?” Aaron gestures to his cock, already filling up again, and Robert moves it so that it rests flush against his stomach.

Somehow, it penetrates Robert’s heat-addled brain that Aaron might not have been through heat with anyone before.

“The first day is worst,” Robert welcomes Aaron as he comes to lie half on him, half off him, thigh slipped between his. “Nothing satisfies me.”

He pulls Aaron right between his thighs and slides them up over Aaron’s hips, Aaron’s cock lying alongside his. Aaron brings them together with his rough, calloused hand and Robert hisses with the good tingles it gives him. Aaron ups the ante by pushing his hips and adding more friction against Robert’s dick. He thinks he’ll come dry now, spent too much already, but still nowhere near done.

He’s right. Robert fists a pillow and throws it off the bed as his body shakes and slowly settles, Aaron’s eyes flitting between his face and their cocks.

He’s also shuddery and oversensitive now, so when Aaron tries to garner even a drop from him, he shoves at him and tries to fold up away from the too much sensations.

Robert finally opens his eyes and Aaron is watching him, fingers dragging over his chest, feeling the sticky skin where he’s come.

“There’s a lull now,” Robert tells him as Aaron settles himself on Robert’s chest. “I can’t anymore, my dick will fall off.”

Aaron laughs, nose touching Robert’s chest, “Is that right?”

“I can finish you off…”

Aaron senses the ‘or’ and Robert hesitates to even mention it.

“Or?”

“Or you could knot me.”

It’s out there now, in the open, and Robert waits to see what Aaron’s reaction will be. Some people love it, revel in their heat for that moment, or moments, when a male alpha knots them, stretches them to their limit and essentially comes for Britain while the two of them are tied together. Robert has always believed in safe sex, part of the reason for his use of suppressants, and he’s never wanted to be tied to anyone, unable to get away if he really wanted to.   

Aaron sits up off him and Robert follows, awkwardly because, despite his assertion, his cock is trying for another appearance.

“I mean, ain’t that—?” Aaron waves his hand in the air and Robert shrugs.

“People make it into a thing when they shouldn’t,” Robert leans back on his elbows and winces a little bit at how raw he feels already.

Aaron nods like he’s digesting that information.

“Hey.”

He looks over at Robert.

“I offered because I want to.”

Another part of it is knotting is closely tied to bonding. It’s what people really get off on, the high of being so close to being someone else’s, but never really committing to it. They’re not there yet, Robert knows, but he thinks that maybe, one day, they will be. He looks at Aaron and he sees a future. Someone he would gladly bond with if the time was right.

Robert feels another rush of slick and his dick throbs intensely. His body wants it. Wants Aaron.

“Look, we don’t have to—”

Aaron pushes his thigh down and forces his way back into his spot between Robert’s legs, “Let’s do it.”

Robert pulls him up, and Aaron has flagged a little, but it’s okay, they’ll be back up and running in no time. He takes the opportunity to kiss Aaron the way that he wants to and how he would if Aaron were balls deep inside him as he strokes over Aaron’s cock with light fingers. He’s forced to stop when Aaron pushes on his shoulder and pulls his face away.

Robert looks down and Aaron’s ready to go again.

Aaron shuffles back and hooks Robert’s thighs over his arms before he pulls him up onto his back on the bed and his legs in the air.

Robert barely has time to grab Aaron’s arms before he’s staring at the ceiling, “Oh, shit.”

Aaron’s fingers press against him again and this time they pop past the first ring of muscle, one by itself, then two, and then three when his body puts up little to no resistance, completely self-lubricated.

“Fuck,” Aaron is looking directly down at his rim and Robert has the insane notion to spread his cheeks, so he does. Aaron takes it as an invitation to take his fingers away and spit directly onto him before he lets Robert down and his bum is resting on Aaron’s thighs. Aaron spits a second time onto his palm before applying that to himself.

Robert grabs hold of his own dick as Aaron moves in line with his body and he starts to breach his hole.

If Robert thought his heat was bad before, it’s ten times worse. He can’t get Aaron inside of him fast enough, so he ends up coming just from Aaron trying. His arse is practically a slip and slide when Aaron brings his legs back over the inside of his elbows, Robert himself a mess of moaning and shaking because the pleasure just won’t subside.

“Y’alright?” Aaron asks him, and Robert can’t form words.

 _I’m great, this is the best, never fucking leave my body, you fucking arsehole_ , but what comes out is more like “nggh.”

Aaron uses his grip on Robert’s thighs to help him thrust in and out, and Robert is just left to take it, not wanting to touch himself, not wanting to do anything other than try not to shout the pub down. He’s back to breathy whimper-cries as Aaron pushes in as deep as he can go and pulls out as slowly as he can. Robert’s dick isn’t even half hard and it’s trying to dribble clear fluid onto his hip crease to no avail.

Cruel as he is, Aaron lets one of his legs drop and starts to stroke his cock.

“ _No_.” It’s feeble and pathetic, and Aaron ignores it.

He chooses instead to encourage Robert, “Yeah, you can, come on.”

Robert doesn’t realise it until Aaron speeds up his thrusts a little that his knot is starting to swell, pushing against Robert’s prostate in bigger increments. He has to shove Aaron off his dick after that because his whole body trembles, flushing cold and then hot, and nothing comes out of him because there’s nothing left.

It leaves him weak and pliable, so Aaron moves him so that he can get out from under him and push his ankles up on his shoulders.

It’s like the whole of Robert’s body is centred on one thing and that’s Aaron’s particular drag inside his body. He doesn’t keep it slow, he’s pushing harder and faster, lips mouthing at the inside of Robert’s ankle, but Robert can’t focus on anything beyond Aaron’s knot. It’s catching more on his rim, making it harder for Aaron to thrust, it feels like it can’t possibly fit inside him without ripping him open.

And yet, Robert wants it. He wants it more than anything. It’s what his heat has been building to. As much as he hates his own biology for the bullshit that comes with it, he’s never been more in sync with it than right now. He grapples with Aaron’s hands on his legs and he gets them down and then back to the way they were originally, his legs loose around Aaron’s waist, but now Aaron’s holds up Robert’s bum with a hand clenched hard on his arse.

“Yeah, that’s it, come on, Aaron, do it, do it, fuck,” Robert can’t fight the wave of his empty orgasm, but he shoves it aside. Aaron’s there with his forehead sweaty, his skin a glistening work of fucking art as he rides Robert to his end. “Jesus, yes, come on.”

And there’s a moment where Aaron’s knot can leave Robert and then the next moment it can’t. Aaron breathes like he’s had the wind knocked out of him and Robert pulls him down onto his chest, fingers scrambling to dig in as hard, and Aaron moans into his skin, long and pinched with pain at the end, the whole time heat spilling inside Robert.

Robert pushes Aaron’s sweat curled hair off his forehead and they share a sweet kiss, Aaron still jerking with the tail end of his orgasm. He wraps his arms around Aaron’s shoulders and they cuddle, naturally sleepy.

Somewhere inside him, Robert’s hindbrain rejoices.

 

Robert wakes up when Aaron’s knot finally starts to go down about 25 minutes later and the aftermath begins to present itself. He feels sloppy and well used, and rather than being disgusted by it, he’s actually satisfied. He can still feel his heat poking around inside him, but it’s happy to leave him in peace for a little while longer. He touches his bum and he’s tender, but not sore. He is, however, dripping come.

He pushes at Aaron’s shoulder to get him to roll off and he picks up someone’s something and wipes himself as clean as he can before he takes the open space against Aaron’s side he’s offering.

“Good?” Aaron mumbles, half-asleep.

“Mmm, for now.”

“Okay.”

 

They get about another hour before Robert is up and riding Aaron’s knot for the second time.  The third time, Aaron pins Robert’s wrists behind his back and forces him to take it, the barrier of what Robert can and can’t take broken. Aaron can’t take a fourth, he’s limp from overuse in a short period of time, but he sucks Robert off like a champ. Each time feeds Robert’s heat. Each time sends him spiralling into a pit of hot need, only to bring him right back out of it with a more satisfying conclusion.

When they finally sate the cresting wave, Robert has no concept of time, but it’s dark out. His legs are wobbly and he needs a sugary drink to sort himself out, so he creeps down and nicks one for himself from the pub inventory and one for Aaron who is barely conscious when Robert closes their bedroom door.

“No more.”

Robert laughs, “No, I think I’m done for now.”

Robert had thought that the moment he had his heat, if he had his heat, he’d go straight back to his doctor and force him to give him another course of suppressants. That he still wouldn’t like the feeling of losing control, of wanting to someone so badly that he’d do anything for it. But it wasn’t like that. Aaron took care of him. His desire was focused solely on one person, on Aaron, it didn’t feel entirely out of place.

 _I always want Aaron_.

And Aaron hadn’t demanded more, that Robert give him his bond, which he would have given, or that Robert should even stay off suppressants.

“Hey,” he whispers, and Aaron peels one eye open, “What?”

“Would you do this again?”

Aaron perks up as much as he can from sleep, “Are you saying—?”

Robert picks at their bedsheets, “This would be a regular thing if I wasn’t on suppressants.”

He feels like he has to clarify, “I would be on birth control. Just to stop any babies, not heats.”

Aaron looks at his stomach with an odd look, and Robert gets it, “I’m on it now, don’t worry. It's different from suppressants.”

“It’s crazy that, I didn’t even think to ask you,” Aaron muses as he lies on his back, and Robert mirrors him so that they’re both looking at the ceiling.

“Heat hormones.”

“And you’d want to, again?”

Robert runs in through in his mind again, the exact feeling on Aaron’s cock taking up every inch of space inside him and claiming him in a whole other way. The way that says: _you, me, forever_.

“Yeah, I would.”

Aaron bites his lip and nods, “Yeah, okay, no more suppressants, if that’s what you want.”

 _I want it with you_.

“I’ll sort it out,” He agrees, and Aaron closes his eyes.

Robert looks down just as Aaron curls his fingers around his wrist and it spreads warmth alongside the heat.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert comes off his suppressants to the expectation of more heats, but he doesn't have one in almost four months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend for this to be a thing, and it's not a thing. I just had a really bad night and I couldn't sleep so I sat up and wrote a second part to fill in the lines of the bits I wasn't happy with in the first part.

Robert comes off his suppressants and nothing happens.

He finishes out his first heat in three days and only the first day was full of hot, sweaty and sticky sex.  After that, it laid as a low hum that he was able to deal with until Aaron was around and they had a quickie in the public loos downstairs with Robert’s hands gripping the top of the stall door as Aaron forced himself _not_ to knot Robert, and they both felt the worst for it.

Almost four months pass and Robert hasn’t felt an inkling of the same irritation that precluded his heat before. No stomach cramps, no hot blood coursing under his skin, not one back twinge. He stares at his own penis in the shower and wonders if it’s still working right.

It’s that very real fear that it’s not that sends him back to Dr Cavannagh.

“Ah, Mr Sugden, what can I do you for?”

They shake hands and sit down.

Robert doesn’t really know where to start, “I, uh, had my heat about a month after I saw you. Stopped taking my suppressants altogether, but nothing since then.”

Dr Cavannagh scrolls through his notes on his computer and looks unconcerned, “Well, a bit of irregularity is to be expected with your history of long term suppressant use.”

He scrolls some more, “Did you spend it with an alpha, your first heat back?”

Robert nods, then realises Dr Cavannagh isn’t looking at him, “Yeah, my boyfriend, er, fiancé.”

“Oh, congratulations. But it does explain some.”

“It does?”

He nods, “Mmm. Think of it this way, you’re hungry, you’re starving, and instead of eating a bowl of clear soup, you eat something really rich.”

Robert must look blank because Dr Cavannagh carries on, “Your heat follows a predetermined urge to mate with an alpha to satisfy your biology, and you gave into that urge. Now it feels like it doesn’t have to come out and play.”

“So, wait,” He’s confused, “Was I wrong to—?”

“No, you were right, it’s much healthier to see a heat through to its most natural conclusion. Just maybe not quite so well next time.”

So, the answer to getting his heat back is to shag less?

“Robert, it will come back, just when its ready, not when you expect it.”

 

 

 

 

He sits spinning his ring on his finger when Aaron grumbles past him to sit opposite him in their pub booth, “How was it?”

“Fine, it’ll come back,” Robert sighs.

“But not yet?” Aaron seems less perturbed by the whole thing than Robert. But Robert notices that Aaron is fidgeting more, and is restless more often. He wonders if there’s something going on at work.

“Hey, let’s go for a drive,” Robert says on a whim.

Aaron’s only just really getting back on his feet from the pile-up, his stitches dissolved and the skin slowly starting to pinken. Robert thinks he needs the distraction.

And apparently, so does Aaron, “Yeah, alright.”

“Good, see you in the car.”

 

 

 

 

Robert makes a quick run to the shop for a few basic things like sandwiches, drinks, and a couple of bags of crisps if they’re out later than they plan, but he’s only a minute and he comes back to Aaron practically stewing in the car in his puffer jacket, zipped up to his nose.

“You okay in there?” He jokes, and Aaron just crosses his arms, “Tough crowd.”

 

 

 

 

He thinks that it might have been better to stay at home with the number of monosyllables Aaron comes out with. Robert ends up parking the car close to where he got out and stormed up the hill to confess his deepest secret. That his first heat was triggered by the farmhand his dad had got in that summer. It was weak, and it barely even bothered Robert more than a few cursory wanks when he woke up, but the smell of an alpha he desired kept pushing and pushing at him until he had to take him upstairs. The rest is history.

Sitting here again with Aaron turtled up in his jacket refusing his offer of a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, Robert wonders what his life would have been like if he had been with that farmhand. Knocked up at 15? Probably. Bringing even deeper shame on his father than simply wanting to be with a boy.

Robert has had enough, “Can you just… _not_?”

Aaron rescinds his shoulders from his ears and takes the crisps, silently opening them and eating them while staring Robert down.

Robert picks up one of the sandwiches, ham and thick cut cheese, one of Aaron’s favourites and opens it up and offers him half, all the aggression gone as soon as it had come.

Aaron takes it with a small, “thanks,” and Robert feels good that he’s been able to reach him. It swells softly in his chest and he eats the other half because it looks good. Or he tries to, it tastes disgusting.

“Ugh, Aaron, don’t eat—”

It’s already gone.

Aaron puts down his crisps, grabs Robert’s half of the sandwich and throws it away before yanking on the back of Robert’s neck to drag him down for a kiss. Robert can’t control his moans as Aaron drives him onto his back, pushing his hands out of the way so he can reach for Robert’s zip. Robert cups his hands up on Aaron’s throat and zeroes in on his lips, the soft feel of them mixed in with the parts that are chapped. Aaron gives on up on his belt without being able to see it and just gropes at Robert’s crotch through the denim.

Robert manages to tear himself away, “Wait, what’s—?”

“You stink of it, Rob.”

He frowns, “Of what?”

That gets Aaron to stop, sit back on his heels, “You don’t...? It’s been driving me mad for days.”

Robert is still drawing a blank.

“Your heat, you’ve smelt like after we’ve shagged since Monday.”

_But I went to see Dr Cavannagh._

“I don’t understand, I went to the doctors, he said my heat would come, not that it’s here.”

“I can smell it, Robert, it’s fucking here.” Aaron gestures to his own groin which looks like it’s tenting painfully against his jeans.

“You’ve been grumpy and off—” Robert reaches for Aaron and he comes naturally forward to meet him, “Are you in a rut?”

Aaron scoffs, but he stops short when his mind clearly starts to think about it.

Robert tries not to be concerned because generally only bonded pairs will precipitate each other’s cycles over forcing a short, induced rut or heat. It’s the final step they’ve yet to take despite promising to marry each other.

Whatever is going on, something is happening now. Robert can feel his symptoms building like a light switch after Aaron’s kiss; the sort of sicky feeling he had and thought was the weather and the ache in his spine. Aaron looks at him like he’s getting a new wave of something thrown at him.

“I can’t help it,” Robert tries to get up, but his jeans dig into him, and he winces before sitting back down.

“Roll over,” Aaron pulls at his belt loop and Robert looks down at his hand. “You ain’t going anywhere with a hard-on that could split rocks.”

Robert takes off his jacket despite the frigid November air and lays it out before unbuckling his belt and getting onto his hands and knees, pushing his jeans off his bum.

“Great, a lovely bit of dogging—”

He lets out a high-pitched whine when Aaron presses his face between his arse cheeks, and he’s glad of his jacket because he goes down, Aaron rubbing at him with two fingers while he gets himself back up.

“Bit of warning next time.”

He gets none. Aaron just spreads him again with one hand and flattens his tongue down to encourage Robert’s body to do what it needs to do. He wraps his fingers around Robert’s cock and pulls him off as he slowly pushes his tongue inside.

Robert groans as he comes, thick spurts that shoot onto his jacket. He drags himself off Aaron’s face, the scratch of his beard tingling and rocks in the empty space for a second as his body settles down.  He spies his cock, flaccid and awkwardly resting on the band of his pants. He’s never been so happy to see a limp dick.

Aaron gets up next to him and Robert shuffles his jeans back up, “Book a hotel, near here. Doesn’t matter what one.”

Robert looks up at him as he fixes himself up, “We’re not that far—”

“Book a room, Robert.”

Black is more forgiving than blue, but even Robert can see Aaron about ready to cut diamonds, “Alright.”

 

 

 

 

 

Wisely, Robert lets Aaron drive. Part of his rut is that he needs to be in control of things, even if that’s shouting at a plonker in the wrong lane at the roundabout.

“Tosser!”

He knows better than to tell Aaron to calm down, so he guides him to the next left and the hotel should come up on the same left. It’s nice from the looks of it.

Aaron practically throws the Porsche into the parking space and Robert drags Aaron back by his arm so that he is leading the charge, not the aggressive, rutting alpha. He’ll be lucky if they both don’t get thrown out.

Robert heads over to the desk and goes through the pleasantries, his body already starting to kick up again. There’s no recognition of scent to the lady behind the reception desk, so she’s probably a beta. She smiles as she hands the keycards over to Robert.

“Enjoy your stay.”

“Thanks,” he mutters as he goes back to Aaron who is one step away from pacing.

“Before you start, she was a beta, very nice, just said enjoy your stay.”

Mollified, Aaron heads to the lift.

Robert tries to find a new stable ground as he walks after Aaron. He’s never had this, this feeling where his heat is tied directly to someone else, one nursing the other.

The lift is so quiet that he could hear a pin drop. Aaron looks completely normal until Robert looks at his hands where he’s white-knuckling against the railing. The silence continues to the hotel room where Aaron stands practically on top of Robert as he opens the door.

He gets one quick glance around before Aaron is pulling him back, cock muted by two layers of jeans but still nudging the crack of Robert’s arse.

There’s something he has to do if he’s really going to go into heat again. He turns and gets on his knees and frees Aaron from his jeans. Thick and veiny, it looks painful to be that hard. Robert doesn’t mess about and takes Aaron into his mouth. Aaron just sort of slackens, like all of his fight to appear normal is gone and he can just be left in peace. He runs one hand through the top of Robert’s hair to brush it out of the way and Robert shifts a little to one side so Aaron can see his cock push out Robert’s cheek as he swallows him down.

Robert chases Aaron’s moans as they start out small and when they come harder and faster when Robert swirls his tongue over the head. He combines it with holding his thumb and forefinger around Aaron’s knot before taking him down as far as he can with a relaxed throat. His nose touches his fingers and he pulls off with an inhale of breath.

“Fuck, do that again,” Aaron asks him, thumb rubbing Robert’s cheek where he’s pretty sure he’s smeared his own spit. He repeats it several more times and prolongs how long he holds Aaron in his throat each time, feeling the throb of Aaron's cock almost like a vibration. This time, he comes away finding it hard to breathe and he tightens his fingers up to the point that Aaron starts dribbling pre-come and he pushes Robert’s hand off him.

Robert stays on his knees, “If I had lube, I’d shag you.”

He left his single use packet in his come stained jacket in the car.

Aaron pulls out his wallet from his coat and he has one. He waves it between his fingers, “You want to?”

Robert stands up, unbuckling his belt again, “Bend over.”

 

 

 

 

 

In one of those happy accidents, Aaron is just the right height for the table in the living area. Robert holds him down with one hand splayed on the middle of his back and the other wet with lube and pressing his way inside. Aaron’s still got his coat on and Robert’s shirt tails are hanging over his dick when he smears the last of the lube of his cock and lines himself up with Aaron’s rim.

Rather than push, Robert drags Aaron back and watches as he curls his head down and keens as Robert steadily buries himself inside him.

Some people might say it’s unnatural. An omega fucking an alpha in a rut, but he’s done it more than he’s ever been fucked during his heat. And of all of them, Aaron is the most beautiful. Mouth open, body moving not only from Robert testing him with small movements but the natural jerk of where he’s stripping his cock for his own pleasure. All of it takes root inside Robert and is helping to uncover his heat. He already feels his body temperature going up even though it’s November, his balls ache in a way that isn’t related to wanting to come, and his stomach feels like it’s got a lead weight inside it. He flattens himself over Aaron and bucks his hips heavily so that they slap against Aaron’s arse and shove him further over the table. Robert makes sure his mouth is right next to Aaron’s ear so that he can hear him moaning for him.

Aaron digs his fingers into Robert’s bum and rests his forehead on the table as his thighs shake and he manages to keep hold of himself. Robert doesn’t let him get away with it. He wedges his hand round and teases under the head of Aaron’s dick until he spills onto the carpet, back arching as he strains against Robert’s fingers.

Robert strokes Aaron’s back as he breathes heavily, face turned to the side, and he slips out with a pop.

His cock sways in the air where he’s still hard, so he cups himself and holds the base as he gets up on the bed. He spreads what lube he’s got down and spits on his hand to make up the rest. The feeling in the pit of his stomach is expanding, his hole is flexing, and he thinks he can feel the start of his slick.

Aaron finally scoops himself off the table and undoes his coat, chucking it off with his jumper. Robert unbuttons his shirt, balls it up and lobs it off the bed, waiting for Aaron to join him.

The true test of whether they’re in sync is that, if Aaron was truly in a rut and it was truly setting off Robert’s heat in an effort to _create_ something, he’d be able to last as long as him. Robert feels an excited thrill when Aaron gets on the bed, jeans around his thighs, and he’s just as hard as if he never came. He doesn’t lean up for a kiss, doesn’t go near Robert’s cock, Aaron settles himself onto his belly and noses under Robert’s shaft and sucks on one of his balls.

It’s like lighting a zipline on fire. Robert feels his spine go rigid and Aaron turns his attention to the other ball and Robert is coming, but this time it’s prolonged, bound up in his heat and how his want doesn’t go away once the come stops. His balls still twitch as if they’re trying to empty but there’s nothing there.

“Yeah?” Aaron asks him, and Robert nods.

It’s not like the last time where he woke himself up to the shock of having a heat. He feels like he’s toed the edge and Aaron has dragged him over it. Aaron’s fingers search and Robert has to tuck his bum under, but Aaron penetrates him with one, curling it forward, pressing on his inner walls towards his cock in the hopes of finding his prostate. His quest doesn’t yield any results straight off, but it does get Robert’s slick going so that he can get two inside and Robert’s ears hone in on the wet squelch.

Aaron lets him go to pull off his shoes and his jeans and it’s already too much time spent doing other things. Robert gets up on his knees to draw Aaron back, but Aaron stands up off the bed to take of the rest of his own gear, leaving Robert wanting, badly, and knee walking down to the edge to try and get a piece of his alpha.

There are decorative throw pillows and Aaron leans past Robert to grab one and Robert can’t pass up the opportunity to kiss his ribs and bite his nipple. Aaron gives him a look, putting the pillow behind him before he pulls on Robert’s thighs as hard as he can and Robert tips back onto it. He laughs as he unfolds his legs, feet touching the floor, knees knocking Aaron’s thighs.

The same way Robert pinned Aaron to the table, Aaron has a hand over his belly holding him as he plunges his fingers back inside Robert’s arse. The gush of slick that follows it as Aaron slides his other hand down to press over the bottom of his stomach, just above his cock, is excessive. He knows it is because Aaron shows it to him. His fingers are drenched with it.

Robert folds his arms over his face and takes a deep breath because his cock is dribbling at the very sight, the feel of Aaron pushing down on him and making him feel full. It’s what he wants. What he craves.

He throws his arms off with a gasp because Aaron is pushing inside him, “See, it’s all good.”

Robert comes again and Aaron is forced to stop halfway inside in him. He scolds Robert through gritted teeth, “You gotta stop doing that.”

“I can’t—” He thought he had escaped it, the mindless part of it all, but it just seems to have come later. Tied up with the desperate need to fuck himself on Aaron’s cock.

Aaron gets his hands around the back of Robert’s neck and pulls him forward as he leans down, shoving Robert’s legs up by default as his hipbones touch Robert’s arse.

“It’s—” Robert can feel Aaron in the back of his throat he’s so deep inside him.

“Yeah.”

 _It’s glorious_.

Robert doesn’t even attempt a modicum of restraint. He grabs onto Aaron’s shoulders, presses his forehead against his and whines as Aaron pulls out and pushes back in. Aaron makes it worse when he tips up on his toes and he’s hitting that nubby spot inside Robert and he’s coming untouched onto his chest and belly. Robert wants a break, it’s too much, but he can’t get away, Aaron’s hold on his neck is too strong.

Robert is about to call him out on it, on his manly pride, when he realises it’s more than that. Aaron’s rut demands that he satisfy him. The sweat on Aaron’s brow isn’t just from exertion, but strain at making sure that Robert gets what he needs.

So, he does what he can to reassure him, “Yes, Aaron, more, just like that.”

Aaron speeds up, slapping their groins together, and Robert whites out when he lets go of one of Aaron’s shoulders and tugs on himself, come splattering, him moaning as Aaron fucks him through it.

He comes to, and Aaron is holding him, thumb stroking his cheekbone, “Hey.”

Aaron suffuses the word in that way of his that says so much more; _hey, you, you alright?_ And inflecting all of Aaron’s soft concern.

 _Good alpha_. It rattles around while Robert reboots, his arse still full, Aaron’s belly smooshing his still hard cock and no knot in place.

“You didn’t…?”

“Almost.”

It’s not good enough. His heat seems to burn hotter by the failure. Robert pushes at Aaron to get him to lean up and he eventually has to pull out as Robert keeps going until he’s sitting up.

“On your back,” he tells Aaron as he shoves off the cushion, they aren’t going to need it.

Of anything, this is when Robert feels the most exposed, as he hooks his leg over Aaron’s and sits astride him, guiding him back inside his slippery hole until he feels the half-swollen knot push past his rim. There’s nowhere to hide like this. If his heat is a base representation of his instincts, this is Robert’s most base representation of himself as he holds onto his own thighs, dick slapping Aaron’s belly as Robert fucks himself on his cock.

Aaron leans on one elbow as Robert cups himself to the side and Aaron takes advantage of it, hand slipping between Robert’s thighs and his index finger tracing them both. Aaron pushes his finger in alongside his dick and Robert pulls off like a shot, his cock pulsing barely there rivulets of come.

“ _Oh_ ,” Robert moans, and Aaron drags him back down and shoves himself back inside before Robert has even finished twitching. It just prolongs his orgasm, empty twitching as Aaron grabs two handfuls of his arse and helps Robert to ride him.

“Come on, Rob, you want that knot.”

Robert balances himself with his hands on Aaron’s stomach and rolls his arse back onto Aaron’s cock.

Aaron lets out a ruined little “yes” so Robert keeps doing it, rocking up and rolling down, his arse cheeks sore from how hard Aaron is holding them.

Aaron pushes up as deep as he can go with a hard shout, and his hands slap against the small of Robert’s back as he scrambles for purchase, his knot swelling to impossibly tight inside Robert and paints him with come. Robert rubs solely at the head of his own cock and the clench of his body as he twitches clamps down on Aaron’s knot and pulls the last bits of come out of him until Aaron is moaning quietly with his hands resting on Robert’s thighs.

Robert gets a cramp in his calf, so it takes a bit of finesse to get them so Robert’s on his back with Aaron on his chest again.

Aaron looks tired, so Robert rubs his back as he snuggles down on Robert’s shoulder. It’s not like the last time where he was tired like Aaron and he could sleep. He looks up at the ceiling with the very small chips in it, Aaron snoring softly on top of him, and tries to untangle his feelings. They decided to wait to bond until after they're married. Part of it being that Robert still hadn’t had a second heat. They could have done it without, but it wouldn’t be as strong. Robert had wondered if Aaron was gunning for a way out. If Robert never had another heat, then he’d never have to bond with him. Yet, _Aaron_ had gone into a rut. Robert doesn’t know much about Aaron’s cycles because he’s pretty irregular too, but he was the one that had brought on _Robert’s_ heat. In theory, the two of them should have more luck hitting the broad side of a barn.

The rational side of Robert’s brain wants to say it’s all coincidence, that they were both due and that they’ve lived together for months. The other side, the omega seeking out a potential bondmate side, tells him that they shouldn’t have even been able to have this. The trauma of the crash should have seen them both off for at least a cycle, but because they’re good for each other, their biology wants to help them. Wants them to bond.

He thinks about it. There’s a couple of ways to do it: blood exchange, which is pretty common and done as a ceremony among friends and family. Having a baby has done it if the two were naturally a match pair, and the last way, the way Robert wants to, brings about the strongest bonds. He slips his hand down and cups Aaron’s bum and he gives a little jolt which sends shivers of pleasure up Robert’s spine as he moves inside him. They’d wait for another one of Robert’s heats, Aaron’s rut optional but preferable, they’d shag, Robert would be knotted, and Aaron would bite his throat. Pin him with it the way he does with his cock. Robert would then return the favour. It’s the quickest and surest way to mix their hormones and combine their scents.

Today was a prime opportunity if they had been ready for it, and it’s only the second of Robert’s heats after being heat-free for over a decade? It's unheard of.

And he also thinks about what Dr Cavannagh said about Robert’s level of satisfaction. He can barely feel his heat pushing him anymore, as if it had this time, and it’s receding back into him like it never was.

 _Maybe it just got what it wanted_.

Robert stops rubbing Aaron’s back, thinking he’s asleep, but he mumbles, “stop thinking,” and flicks Robert’s nipple.

 _Not much else to do when you’re tied to someone else’s cock and an arse full of come_.

“Don’t you think it’s weird?” He asks, and Aaron props his head up.

“What?”

“That we cycled at the same time?”

“No.”

“Really?”

Aaron kisses his chest and leans on his hand again, “No. It’s how it’s supposed to be, ain’t it?”

Robert considers it, and Aaron carries on, “Means we’re not taking a shot in the dark.”

There are people who have tried to force bonds when they weren’t compatible, some omegas with other omegas, alphas with alphas, all sorts for all types, but if the biology isn’t there, the drive to be together, it just leads to unhappiness.

It also means Aaron believes in their biology. That what he feels when Robert goes into heat is a good thing.

Robert strokes his hand up Aaron’s arm to his shoulder, his ring shining at him, and he nods. It just makes him wonder: did he pick Aaron because he wanted him, or did he want him because he was supposed to pick him?

Or maybe the real truth is Aaron was made just for him, and him for Aaron, the world was just waiting for them to find each other and that’s the scarier thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify, biology in this case, ‘[…] the biology isn’t there, the drive…’, is that any person of any designation can be with whomever they choose, but if they’re really meant to be together, kind of like soulmates, then their biology, their drive/base needs, will be in line with their intellectual desires. The system of A/B/O is there to create strong bonding pairs (or polys) to sustain the genetic mutation (of rutting, heats and reproduction), so it wants the best for each person.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Robert tries to begin to move on from Aaron, biology has a way of...working itself out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alt!canon timeline **where the ONS occurs, but Seb does not**. Robert was already seen to be on contraceptive medication in previous chapters, which is why I chose that route. That's not to say alcohol cannot negate contraception, it totally can, but in this case, no. This is PWP, ain't nobody got time for that.
> 
> ETA: this is the final part.

Aaron gets a boyfriend. A beta.

Part of Robert is itching to know whether it’s intentional or not. No real scent clinging to his skin and no ability to smell anything on Aaron.

He knows he lost his right to Aaron when he cheated and when the pain became too much for Aaron to handle, and he accepted that, and everything that came with it. His whole body just shut down. From the moment Aaron was taken from him, sent down to prison and then pushed out of Aaron’s life by his struggles, Robert felt weak with it. On their ‘honeymoon’, his body made a valiant effort to attempt a heat, but nothing more than sparks kicked up under his skin with every heavy press of Aaron’s fingers.

He supposes his only saving grace in all of it was that he never stopped taking his birth control; get up, pop the pill packet, drink the water. That was his routine, what he clung to when he didn’t have Aaron. He was in the very small minority that, despite drinking copious amounts of alcohol, he didn’t throw it up or negate its effects in his system. It didn’t stop there being a scare. The looks out of the corners of their eyes at each other, wondering whether he had been able to get someone else pregnant.

There was no baby, but also no trust.

_“We were gonna bond, Robert!”_

_“I know.”_

_“You could’ve—you could’ve bonded with Rebecca through a kid.”_

_“_ No _.”_

_“You don’t know that.”_

_“I do, me and her, we’re not compatible.”_

_“Compatible enough that you slept with her.”_

 

Rebecca who is an alpha like Aaron. Robert never liked that about her, the amount of fawning she did, but growing up with an older alpha sister like Chrissie, she built herself an inferiority complex and lived it like a brand. No, what he liked about her was that she made him feel like an alpha when he was young and struggling to feel anything other than being Chrissie’s toyboy who’d give up the goods eventually. When the time was right (that being when her family deemed it so).

But Rebecca had never done for him what Aaron had. Both as a man and as an omega. Aaron loved all of him, down to his very bones, and he fucked it up, royally.

 

And yet, given the choice, Aaron didn’t pick another omega.

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas passes and the reality sets in. Robert has to give Aaron up for good. Listlessly pining for a man who has moved on and is succeeding without him is something he can’t avoid. Moreover, Vic’s been on at him about getting out there and at least trying to see what’s out there. So Robert figures that he needs to at least go back on his suppressants. It’s been over six months, in fact, it’s been over a year since he had his last heat. It’s not coming back, so take it out of the equation.

He feels like a dog with its tail between its legs when he tells Dr Cavannagh.

“Over 18 months without suppressants, and two heats? I’m very happy with that progress, Mr Sugden,” Dr Cavannagh scribbles on the paper portion of his notes.

Robert bounces his knee nervously, “You don’t think…you don’t think I should have had more?”

Dr Cavannagh pauses for a moment, “No. Had you been single throughout this time, maybe.” He puts his pen down, his face softens, “You weren’t trying to attract a mate during that period, you were in a stable relationship and with that came ties.”

Aaron’s rut and their night in that hotel comes to mind.

“Your body did exactly what it needed for that situation. I imagine that if you were to start dating now, that would be very different.”

That sends a wave of unease into Robert’s gut, “What do you mean?”

“You’re young and fertile, Robert, but also time is moving on, I can imagine your body might sense or predict a level of urgency. That’s why I’m giving you another course of suppressants. You might get a breakthrough heat, but that’s only been seen in the rare cases of bonded pairs meeting and it’s not usually as intense. You should be fine but come and see me if you have any problems.”

 

 

 

 

Great, so he’s over the hill and his body is on a scramble for someone to get him up the duff. If anything, it makes it worse that when he goes to get a coffee at Bob’s, Aaron is there, smiling.

“Heya.”

Robert wants the ground to swallow him up, “Alright?”

“Ehh,” Aaron shrugs, but then laughs with a somewhat pained undertone.

“What’s wrong?”

“Turns out, it’s pretty easy to fuck up pasta,” Aaron picks up his to-go cup and Robert’s is empty, so he naturally leaves with Aaron, curious about his predicament.

“What’d’ya mean?”

“I was following Marlon’s recipe and I, well, I screwed it all up, didn’t I? Had to have a coffee break and get more stuff.”

Robert thinks on it, “What’s your flour-to-egg ratio like?”

Aaron side-eyes him like it’s not a thing and Robert is making stuff up.

“C’mon, I’ll help ya.”

Aaron stops, “Robert—”

“What? I’m not doing anything else and you know how I feel about poorly made Italian.”

 

 

 

Alex cancels, and Aaron deflates.

Robert tries to claw it back for him, “They’ll keep. Just stick ‘em in the fridge—”

“Or…we could eat ‘em?”

He tries not to let his stomach and his butterflies run away with him, “Er, yeah, okay; thanks.”

They eat and drink beers, reminiscing on better times until Robert stumbles into what they did last Valentine’s day and he’s desperate to pull at the collar of his shirt because Aaron smiles knowingly at him, his amusement at having to remind Robert about their ‘early night’ clear.

Engaged and betrothed to their prospective bond last year, there wasn’t a line, other than biting, that they couldn’t or wouldn’t cross. Aaron left him walking funny almost up until their wedding and Robert had made it horrifically difficult for Aaron to sit properly on anything that wasn’t the softest of cushions. That and they’d both almost wanked each other’s dicks raw.

Robert suddenly became very interested in washing up. He fights the flush of heat that comes up under his cheeks and Aaron tries to help by bringing him the rest of the dirty dishware, only his scent, pungent from being in the Mill anyway, invades Robert’s nose like nothing else. Especially with it being tinged with an edge of attraction. He shakes his head because he must be imagining it.

“Uh, ta,” Robert holds up the tea towel and Aaron takes it, small smile on his face as their fingers accidentally brush. “I’ll let you get on.”

“Yeah, and thanks, for trying.”

“’Course, I hope you and Alex…get together soon.”

He’s mentally slapping himself in the face the whole time he walks home. It’s February and Robert is huffing in the dark air, and yet, he’s still boiling hot like he’s cooking still.

His phone rings and it’s Aaron, he picks it up but there’s nothing going on at the other end, “Aaron?”

Robert hears an exhale and then Aaron comes on the line, “Pocket dial, sorry.”

He watches Aaron disconnect and he can’t understand it.

 

 

 

 

Robert wakes up with persistent morning boners for the next entire week. Robert has tried thinking gross thoughts, flicking it – he wishes he hadn’t done that – ignoring it, nothing but reaching an orgasm gets rid of it. He’s got so much more washing to do and trying to hide it from Vic is getting harder and harder.

“Do you mind?” He tells it as he’s laying in bed. He rolls onto his side and it slaps his thigh, but he ignores it. It makes tears well up in Robert’s eyes because it’s been so long since another person touched him. Since Aaron touched him.

Only Aaron’s touching someone else now and Robert’s got an erection that could hold up the Tower of Pisa.

“Fuck it,” He takes himself in hand with a squirt of lube and he gets rid of it for the seventh and final time. If nothing else, he’s going to get rid of this. Somehow. His self-imposed celibacy is over. For the sake of public decorum at least.

Bernice hears about his night out somehow and she makes it into a thing. Trapped between his sisters, Vic already texting him she’ll see him there and their friends, Robert just chooses not to make it worse by mentioning his ‘problem’. He gets in the minivan and prays to God that someone buys him alcohol and a lot of it.

 

 

 

 

He meets Irish Mike. He’s an omega as well, Bernice is undesignated, it happens, but it means she’s got no clue of who she’s throwing together. Mike seems nice enough, but he sort of flounders a bit because of Robert’s disinterest and because of his own instincts. Robert apologises and heads back to his table, Vanessa rubbing his back, but also trying to get him to try again.

“Why don’t you go after him then?” He grouses. Robert realises with startling clarity that he’s basically surrounded by alpha women; Vanessa, surprisingly, Priya, Vic, Kerry.

“I’m spoken for! I think. Just have a chat with him, he seems nice. And designations have never really stopped you, have they?”

He manages to get out of it, or he stays out of it until he sees Aaron on the edge of the dancefloor and his heart surges up into his throat and he’s sweating.

“It’s hot, Vic, I’m gonna get some air,” He says to her as she looks over at Aaron.

“I’m sorry, this is my fault, I invited him.”

“Why’d you do that?” He hisses at her. He needs out. He needs cool, refreshing air.

 

 

 

 

Robert’s blood is rushing in his ears when Mike offers him a way out.

 

His hands are shaking because he doesn’t want this.

 

Aaron says beautiful and too kind things.

 

It all blurs because he’s in heat.

Aaron is waiting for him to respond, “You can talk.”

“I’m a really good dancer,” He croaks out. Aaron laughs through his tears. “’Course I’ll come home with ya.”

Robert sways them out onto the street as he slips in and out of his conscious brain into his heat addled one. Aaron’s face drops when he gets a whiff of it.

It makes Robert irrationally angry, “Well it ain’t _for_ _him_ , is it? It’s for you.”

He’s worse than a teenager, he didn’t take his suppressants the day he got them, then after spending the evening with Aaron eating pasta and talking about their sex life, it had already taken root inside him. Every instance of morning wood he had was for his husband, trying to lure him back.

“Robert—”

Aaron’s hands hover like he doesn’t know what to do.

“Touch me then.”

Aaron touching him is like his body getting permission to fully go ahead with the heat: _look, yes, our alpha is pleased_. It’s just Aaron’s hand cupping the exposed skin on his neck, but it shoots into his hindbrain like fireworks. His temperature also ramps up exponentially, his back starts aching, and his balls feel like lead weights. Robert hems Aaron in, in the middle of the street where they just kissed all soppy and alike, puts his hands on his hips and pretty much starts humping his leg.

“ _Robert_ ,” Aaron scolds him but there’s no heat to it.

 _Heat_ , Robert laughs to himself, _no I buggered off with all of it_. Aaron always knows how to make it better though. He takes Robert’s hand and he laces their fingers together as they walk home. It’s something small, something he can focus on. _One foot in front of the other_.

 

 

 

 

 

The moment they get inside the Mill, all bets are off. Robert drags Aaron into his body, his own shirt scratching at his nipples and belly and he feels the zing so much harder. Aaron doesn’t untuck his shirt, instead, he gets on his knees and unzips Robert’s jeans. Rubbing against him before pressing his nose against Robert’s crotch, it all bubbles up for Robert and he bends his knees and at the waist as his dick wets the inside of his boxers.

Aaron takes it in his stride, just unbuckles Robert’s belt and pops the button on his jeans and sets his cock free and straining upward. The cooler air against the glistening tip has him shivering, but Aaron warms him up with tight lips around the head.

Robert scrunches his hands up in the shoulders of Aaron’s thin puffer jacket as Aaron sucks him through two more smaller orgasms and he has to tap out, sloping onto the floor, jeans and pants around his knees, cock and balls exposed as Aaron leans over him to kiss him. Robert doesn’t bother with pretence, he grabs Aaron’s face, hands pinning his jaw, and thrusts his tongue inside his mouth. He tastes the remnants of that salty tang and it spurs him on, pulling Aaron further towards him until he’s getting up and hook his leg over Robert’s hips to sit on his lap.

Aaron’s jeans are just the right amount of rough and he knows it as he pushes his arse down. Robert hisses the first time, feeling sensitive and tight, but he gets his hands on Aaron’s thighs and he rolls slower. As much as his heat demands he satisfy his own needs, he can see the bulge beginning to tent Aaron’s zip and it makes his mouth water. Aaron watches him, and as if he can read minds, he pushes Robert down with fingers on his chest when he leans up to do something about it. He’s forced to endure the little circles around and around of Aaron’s denim clad arse on his cock.

Robert takes into account that Aaron can’t hold him and hold his own balance, so he uses his hands to unbutton Aaron’s jeans, free him from his pants so that he’s peeking over the top of them before he sucks his finger into his mouth. Aaron doesn’t stop rolling his hips, but he stutters, stops and starts before he gets his rhythm back. With one hand, Robert pulls Aaron’s jeans down at the back and with his wet middle finger, he teases against Aaron’s rim, a couple of taps before he slowly prods his way inside. It’s barely a fingertip because of the angle, but Aaron pushes down harder than any other time, trying to make more of it, but he comes down heavy on Robert’s dick and Robert almost bucks him off as he soaks the undercarriage of Aaron’s jeans and the floor with his come.

The truth is, none of this has touched Robert, he’s still impossibly hard, practically sweating want out of his pores and he doesn’t get it. He pushes against Aaron’s bum and his cock screaming at him: _no more! Abort!_ But his heat brain says _yes, c’mon, harder_.

Aaron knows though, as always.

“It ain’t what you need.”

 

 

 

 

 

It’s nothing like he’s ever felt before, or maybe he doesn’t remember his other heats that well. On his knees, the duvet dragging underneath him, his naked chest and shoulders tipped forward, Robert chokes on his own moans, dick slapping up onto his belly, Aaron’s fingers are like pincers keeping him in place as he thrusts himself inside Robert’s slick soaked arse.

He’s just a quivering mass of ‘nggh’ and ‘aah’ as Aaron rides him hard.

Robert comes, spurting small drips that mean nothing as Aaron keeps going, so he pushes back, forcing Aaron to drag him up onto only his knees, belly pushed out, back arched as he tries to stay upright while getting fucked. It’s slower like this, but he feels Aaron splitting him open on his cock. His whole heat seems to swirl, feeling nothing but satisfaction at the good level of dick he’s getting, but also burning hotter because it’s not done yet.

 _It_ being the fact his throat is now burning, more intensely than any other time. It’s an itch he wants to claw at until he can rip it open and let the blood flow freely onto his skin for a bit of relief. Aaron makes it worse by mouthing at it, teeth grazing and lips drawing pinpricks of fire up underneath rather than soothing.

“Just do it,” Robert turns his head away, there’s nothing else to be done, it’s now or never, he can’t bear it any longer, and Aaron’s mouth stills on his neck. Robert brings his hand up to hold Aaron there, make his nose stay pressed against Robert’s skin. He wonders what it smells like. To him all he can smell is him, and Aaron, and how they combine as a big sweaty mess, come coating various parts of him and the bed.

Aaron licks his throat, but it’s not enough. Robert shudders and whines, wriggling his arse on Aaron’s shaft, all base attempts to unconsciously get him to pierce the painful skin.

“I need it, Aaron,” Robert breathes, “I need _you_ , you’re it for me. _Aaron_.”

He sounds like an awful, slutty omega, begging for their mate like every dirty magazine he’s ever read on the subject, but if it gets him Aaron’s bite, he’ll do it. Fuck, he’ll do anything, he just needs that sense of ownership, that after all these endless months, he’s someone’s. No. He’s his husband’s. His alpha’s.

Robert can feel where Aaron opens his mouth, just resting, and his body coils for it. Just rests on the edge of waiting, excitement mixed in with a bit of fear.

“ _Please_.”

Aaron’s arms band around his waist and he shoves his hips forward, dick buried in as deep as he can go, knocking Robert back onto all fours as he finally bears down with his teeth.

It hurts, fuck, it hurts. His arse is full to the point of pain, his throat feels shredded and raw with Aaron still rolling his hips in tiny circles, pinning him both ways to stop any hypothetical escape. It doesn’t make sense, but Robert grabs himself in his hand and strokes. It all hurts, but it’s satisfying in a way he didn’t think was possible. He stains the bed with his most intense orgasm yet, eyes rolling back into his head as he wobbles and moans, Aaron’s knot swelling like an impossible wedge as heat floods inside him.

Aaron slowly takes his mouth away, and the pain is muted, like the pinch of a needle before he licks whatever wounds he’s made. Robert isn’t strong enough, he limply goes to his belly, Aaron squashing onto his back as he spreads his legs out like a starfish on the bed.

He hums, pleased, his heat finally receding a little, and Aaron presses kisses into his shoulder, trying not to jostle his bite too much as he squirms, his body still coming. Robert reaches around to hold Aaron’s bum, to feel the muscles exert and flex, and even though his own body won’t work, he loves and appreciates all of it.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a two-way street and a two-way bond.

He doesn’t have to be buried deep inside Aaron to do it, but he wants to be. Wants Aaron to have what he just did. The utter sense of possession that consumed him.

They both dozed for a bit. Aaron’s on his back with his cock soft between his legs. Robert bypasses it to tuck two fingers under his balls and Aaron wriggles away, thighs closing, while grabbing onto Robert’s wrist.

“Twat.”

Robert pushes his way between Aaron’s knees and hooks his shoulders under Aaron’s thighs before swallowing the tip of his cock into his mouth with hollow cheeks. The slurp of it is loud and obscene, but it encourages more than hinders. He spits down and uses his thumb to rub his saliva on Aaron’s taint and below before he spits again. The first time is a shock, and Aaron jumps, but the second, he leans his leg away to give Robert a bit more room as he starts sucking Aaron’s dick again, working it from interested to thick and rigid. He pays special attention to the fleshier base, his un-distended knot, firstly nosing against it, then licking it and tonguing it, Aaron push-pulling on his hair to get him to stop.

“Why?” He murmurs, kissing the crease of Aaron’s hip.

“I ain’t like you, I ain’t got unlimited coming power.”

“You don’t want to come?” He pops his thumb passed Aaron’s rim and Aaron gasps, pulling his foot up under his knee.

“’Course I do.”

Robert eases it almost out and then back in, Aaron bites his lip and tilts his head up, “I probably just won’t come when you want me to.”

“When’s that?” He asks, again, encouraging the tip into his mouth and dragging his thumb downward and pressing firmly against Aaron and then inside.

“When you bond with me,” Aaron gives a little ‘ah’ and Robert opens his mouth a little more than is necessary, lets more spit dribbling out down Aaron’s cock as he takes his hand away.

He slips off, “You wanna bond with me?”

It’s a joke, even if Robert never bites Aaron, he’s got a neon sign stamped over himself: _bondmate of Aaron Dingle_.

Still, Aaron rolls his eyes, “Ya dolt.”

His hand reaches to almost touch Robert’s bite but he doesn’t. It’s itchy and tender, but the throb of it is good. _Mine. Yours_.

“Turn over,” His voice goes all unintentionally raspy. Aaron presents his arse and he’s about to go onto his belly, but Robert grabs his hips to stop him, “Great.”

Aaron exhales a shuddery breath out and Robert can tell in how his body shakes.

Unlike Robert’s biology and heat, Aaron doesn’t have any natural enhancements to ease things along, but one of Robert’s favourite past times is getting him there with his mouth. Aaron used to fight him on it, not because he didn’t like it, but he didn’t know how to feel about it, his own alpha sensibilities fighting him. Robert had just begged a little, _‘let me make you feel good’_ , putting a bit of charm on it and Aaron reluctantly agreed. Now Aaron scratches at his own thighs as Robert sucks and tongues his arse with calculated precision.

Robert aims for that, spreading Aaron’s cheeks with his thumbs, he licks a wide stripe over him and he whines and beds down. Robert curls his tongue over Aaron and wets him as best he can, each time he circles over his rim, he gives a little push on it. Aaron is rubbing himself off, Robert can feel it in the flex of the muscle. He blindly reaches to pull his hand away and Aaron’ laces their fingers against his thigh. Robert gives up doing much else other than thrusting his tongue in as deep as he can and letting Aaron rock back onto his face. Let him fuck himself open on his tongue.

Aaron’s sighs build into moans and his fingers are holding almost painfully tight to Robert’s.

“Just—fuck,” Aaron forces himself off Robert’s face, the small of his back glistening with sweat, Robert just wipes his mouth and nips at Aaron’s ribs as he gets up and leans over him.

Sliding onto his back under Robert, Aaron pushes Robert’s hair off his forehead and smiles. Robert’s heart twists. He had missed that smile so much. He touches it with his thumb. He’s going to have that forever now. He can already feel Aaron’s bite and how it as penetrated his skin and down into his bones. In a lot of ways, it doesn’t feel any different. He doesn’t love Aaron any more or any less. All that has changed is how much Robert feels he has given to Aaron. He doesn’t have to say he loves Aaron because it’s there in his DNA now. _All of me is you_.

Robert thinks it, _I love you, I love you so much_ , and Aaron smiles wider like he hears it.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert isn’t an alpha and he never will be. Part of him will always be that little bit submissive to Aaron’s wants and desires. Less willing to fight and want to win with him no matter how hard he tries. The reward for rolling over and showing his belly too ingrained.

But he does want this, “On the floor.”

Aaron squints like he doesn’t get it, but he gets up with a certain amount of grumbling, cock bobbing in the air still, but he also lets Robert manhandle him onto his back on the floor.

Aaron digs his fingers into Robert’s forearms as Robert nudges his way inside. No lube, it has to burn even with Robert’s ministrations, but Aaron hooks his ankles around Robert’s bum and doesn’t let him go until their hips are resting together.

Robert shakes Aaron off him and moves to hold Aaron down by his biceps after pushing them up by his head. Robert's hips shove heavily against Aaron’s in smaller and then larger singular motions, rutting more than fucking and Aaron’s legs sway up with the movement, his cock still thick and angry against his belly. Robert sees the slick head of it and thumbs to see if it's tacky. It is. Aaron huffs because he wants to be free, his now loose arm coming around Robert’s shoulders. Robert keeps touching him, keeps spreading the wetness as it comes, Aaron jerking and his toes curling with stimulation before Robert nudges his cheek to get him to turn his face away. To give Robert the room to bite.

Back abraded on the carpet and an arse full of cock, Aaron looks like an omega. But he’s not. He’s an alpha who has always sighed and bullied Robert for more of his dick, so that’s what he gets.

Aaron licks his lips, “Robert, now, it’s gotta be—”

Robert doesn’t need telling twice. He licks Aaron’s skin, holds his teeth ready for the moment as Aaron’s whole body tightens, Robert shifting his hand down as it strokes to drag the come out.  

Aaron breathes heavily out of his nose as he drags his fingertips over Robert’s shoulders and into his hair, “Shit, _yes_ ,”

Robert curls his other hand around the base of Aaron’s cock, he isn’t sure if it would work, but he thinks it does something because Aaron keens loudly before trembling and his body giving up big shuddery shakes as he shoots come over Robert’s knuckles.

That’s the moment Robert does it. He rends flesh from flesh; the iron tang of blood hits Robert’s tongue and it makes him feel powerful. He encompasses all of Aaron, from the inside out. And Aaron is grabbing handfuls of him, letting him go only to grab another handful. It’s like there isn’t enough of him for all of Aaron’s desire.

Aaron moans quietly and his brain tells him to let go, _soothe_. He takes as much care as Aaron to make sure taking his mouth away doesn’t hurt more than it has to.

There is still a line of come dribbling out of Aaron’s dick, but he stops Robert from squeezing it out.

“I can’t,” he shakes his head.

He doesn’t let Robert pull out though, he makes him lay across his chest, come sticking them together and all. It’s like a new awareness falls over Robert. Me becomes we, I becomes us. He isn’t consumed by their bond, but it encases all that he was in a protective bubble.

He tells Aaron, “I think I can feel…you.”

“Mmm, not like I can hear your thoughts, but, you’re there.” _In the background_.

Aaron turns onto his side, and Robert shifts his thigh up and flattens his chest to Aaron’s side as he rolls up onto his toes, pushing back inside of him. His heat isn’t looking to explode or to drive Robert to fuck Aaron further into the carpet or to be fucked, so he takes his time. He has the general sense that Aaron is pleased with him. It’s a feeling that increases when Robert kisses a couple of the red carpet burn spots on Aaron’s shoulder that he can reach.

“Well, that’s weird,” Aaron points out about the new feelings swirling inside them, and Robert laughs.

“Good luck getting rid of me now.”

Aaron puts his hand back in Robert’s hair and pulls him down for a kiss, clenching his arse, “Bugger off, I want you here. Everywhere—”

Double the feelings, double the pleasure. Robert chokes on thin air as his orgasm falls out of him. His mouth is open and trembling, and Aaron seems to be hit with the same wave, he uses Robert’s gaping mouth as an anchor by kissing him and putting his other hand on Robert’s face to pull him completely over him.

“We have to do that again,” Aaron murmurs as Robert rests his forehead on his. “How do people do sod all else?”

Robert has heard that bonded pairs even get paid holidays at big corporations because of needing to adjust to their new reality. He called it gratuitous skiving but living it right now, he thinks he could be taking some personal days very soon.

Who was he kidding? He wasn’t leaving or letting Aaron leave their bed for a week as it was. He, they, need time to refamiliarize themselves with each other. Work out the details of what being back together means. He has two platinum wedding bands in his wallet that, if Aaron wants, could have more permanent homes elsewhere.

They don’t need them now, technically, everyone is going to look at them and see the teeth mark scars and know they belong to someone, deeper than any ring could ever show. But Robert found that he liked it, wearing a ring. There was something traditional about the choice. People might argue that biology made them bite each other, but a ring, that’s a choice.

Aaron winces as Robert eases out of him and spoons alongside his back, he reaches back a hand to Robert’s hip, just to hold him, and Robert snuggles into his shoulder, his unbitten side, and leaves a kiss on his skin.

There’s silence.

“Did we really have to do this on the carpet?”

 

 

 

 

 

Robert wakes up in the morning and he’s gasping, heat back in force. His dick is painfully hard and his whole body is one big stimulated nerve.

“Aaron—"

Aaron mumbles at him.

“Aaron,” Robert whacks his arm and he wakes up with a jolt.

“What?!”

Robert points to his groin, “That.”

Aaron is nothing but a shit in the morning, “Congratulations?”

Robert makes an educated guess and pulls the covers down, they migrated back to the bed quite quickly when it looked like they were both going to fall asleep, and Aaron is just as hard.

“It’s the morning, Robert, I don’t know why you’re—”

Robert takes him in hand and slowly starts to stroke him. It’s like feeding a loop, Aaron’s pleasure feeds into him, which kicks Robert in balls only to feed back into Aaron.

It’s all it takes to get Robert’s arse slick, and Aaron gasps: “I can _feel_ that.”

Robert gets roughly put on his belly, face squashed into the pillows and Aaron ruts against his arsecrack before plunging deep inside him with little to no resistance on Robert’s part. It also sets Robert off like a rocket and Aaron drops to Robert’s back and rolls his forehead back and forth against his shoulders, “What the—?”

Aaron pulls out and lies on his back for Robert to climb over him, and he does, but facing the other way. He can’t look at Aaron, can’t feel connected to him any more than this because it’s too much. His feelings push at Robert’s and elevate them both. He just selfishly fucks himself on Aaron’s cock and leans on Aaron’s knees when he moans and spills without touching himself. Aaron’s knot seals them together barely a moment after, Aaron’s hands grabbing his waist to pull Robert down onto himself as his cock twitches inside of Robert.

Aaron murmurs his name over and over as Robert unfolds his legs and lies on his back on Aaron’s chest. Aaron’s fingers loosely fiddle with his dick and that gets a weak sputtering of come out of him, but the feeling itself gets folded into and eaten up by the feeling of their combined orgasm. Robert’s arse is just consistently tightening and untightening on Aaron’s cock to pull the most amount of come out of him and it translates as overstimulation for them both. They both sweat because of it, both unable to get away from it and just trying to hold on to get to the end of it.

Robert sighs, “Aaron.”

He gets a healthy pat on his belly and he gets it. They just have to ride it out, but it’s too much. _He didn’t know_. Robert comes again, cock jerking against his skin as Aaron wraps his arms around his chest to cuddle him in close.

He has the hysterical thought: _well, fuck, this is how babies are made_.

Aaron’s knot finally goes down about fifteen minutes after Robert comes against his stomach and his hole feels sloppy and loose as everything begins to drip out of him onto Aaron’s groin.

Robert’s heat is strangely silent in its satisfaction, so he loves and leaves Aaron with a kiss and his ring to go and get his contraceptive pills. Knowing Robert’s luck, he’s the most fertile omega in the Dales. But he also uses the time to stretch and test the bond between them.

He was right, he can’t read Aaron’s thoughts, but he gets a sense that he’s happy. Possibly pottering around the Mill, getting ready to see his family. He did say he wanted to tell them that they were back together. Robert tries to push his own good, happy feelings down the tensile line, and it seems to work because Aaron feels happier still.

Yesterday, Robert had nothing, now he has a husband, a bondmate and a ring, and he’s going to do everything he can to honour that because now there’s no messing about. They’re it for each other. Not even death can separate the love of a bonded pair. Not that Robert would want it to. He hates to think about it, it’s an anathema to his happiness right now, but he acknowledges it. If he, or Aaron, were to die, they would mourn deeply, not only the loss of the person but of this tenuous thing between them of shared experiences. No one, no matter how long or how far removed would ever replace what they have together. Once bonded, that’s it.

Robert gets a deep rush of love inside and he knows that’s Aaron, trying to bring him back up from whatever sadness he’s feeling. It’s why people don’t bond unless they’re absolutely sure. The emotional fall out of being bonded is enough alone, even Robert is surprised by the level of interconnection between them, but to lose that? It’s a fate worse than death.

His phone starts ringing and it’s Aaron.

Robert picks it up and before Aaron can even start, “I’m fine, I was just thinking about…if I lost you.”

“You ain’t gonna lose me.”

“I know, I just had to do it. To realise it,” and he did. Robert never thought he’d ever meet his bondmate. His one person who would see this life through with him, give him children if they desired. “I love you. And I’m glad we did it.”

Aaron is quiet for a second, his voice soft with emotion, “Me too.”

“I’ll see ya later, alright?”

Aaron hums and says bye, heavy with reluctance.

 

 

 

 

Robert goes to sort out his day: pills first, time off second and eternal happiness third. He’s still got remnants of his heat pulling tendrils of want through his body and Jimmy doesn’t let him through the door of the portacabin before he says Robert can take all the time he needs.

This heat lingers stronger than any of the three he’s had since coming off suppressants. Maybe it’s happiness, maybe it’s the bonding, but it stays for a whole week, and because of it, he and Aaron decide to get suppressants to prevent any future heats.

When Dr Cavannagh asks him why, Robert tries not to feel embarrassed when he says, “I can’t come that much, it just hurts. All the time.”

He writes Robert a prescription for medicated lube and then life is just blissfully perfect.


End file.
